The widespread demand for music and the growing availability of the Internet as a means of commerce have resulted in a multibillion-dollar industry for audio compact disks (“CDs”) sales via the Internet. In 1999, the sales of physical CDs via the Internet accounted for $890 million. It is anticipated that this will grow to $6.7 billion by the year 2003.
Along side this growth in the sales of physical CDs is the explosive growth in Internet music downloads. Audio compression technologies such as MP3 (MPEG Layer III) have allowed digital music to be stored at compression rates of 10-1 or better. This compression technology, along with the rise of the Internet and increasing bandwidth, have led to an explosion of downloadable digital music available over the Internet. Individual tracks of music can now be downloaded from the World Wide Web, sent via e-mail, or stored and downloaded via FTP sites and Usenet newsgroups.
This new technology has brought new challenges to the policing of copyright interests in materials distributed in or convertible to digital form. Unauthorized copying of digital materials is of particular concern in the music industry, though efforts have been made to prevent it. One approach is to control access to the digital files, requiring the receipt of payment before the file can be downloaded. To prevent redistribution of files that have been downloaded, technology has been applied in attempt to limit the ability to access the files to a particular computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,152 to Erickson (“Erickson '152”) describes a system and method for managing copyrighted electronic media. Erickson '152 describes the use of a registration system to make documents available over a computer network, and an authorization system for end-users to obtain the desired level of permission to use and alter the document. End users are then able to subsequently register the resulting derivative work. According to the Erickson '152 system, permissions are attached to the document file, and the user downloads or accesses the document file with the appropriate permissions attached to the document file. Thus, the permissions must co-exist with the documents. This is disadvantageous for a number of reasons. For example, if the user loses a document file, he/she also loses their permission to use the document. Further, Erickson's system contemplates distribution of documents through specific servers, i.e. the author does not have the option of posting the document from any server he/she chooses and this may be insufficient to meet the author's marketing objectives. Finally, once the document is downloaded and licensed, it cannot be further distributed since the site specific license is embedded in the file.
What is needed is a secure, digital licensing scheme that allows easy and widespread distribution of copyrightable materials, while at the same time preventing subsequent unauthorized access. Further, it would be advantageous for an authorized user to transport licensed materials between several computers. Finally, what is needed is a secure and convenient method of distributing music files, where a producer of the music can distribute files to potential customers without having to attend to licensing and selling functions.